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Photograph of Robert Bruce Thompson Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary

Week of 12 December 2005

Latest Update: Sunday 18, December 2005 1:00 p.m.


Monday, 12 December 2005

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Sorry, no pictures to post tonight. I have trip pictures plus my tree. Bob forgot I wanted to post pictures tonight and started a process on his PC. At some point he will teach me how to process and post my own pictures rather than having to rely on him. Hopefully he will have them ready for me for tomorrow night's post.

Last night we watched a disk of a program from our local public broadcasting station. If you are into Celtic music I highly recommend this CD/DVD of Five Celtic Women. Taped live in Dublin, the program features some of the newer and younger talent from the musical genre. Or, you can go to their web site for more information about these young stars plus a sixth one who joined the group after this show was produced. This site also features a link for purchasing their individual CD's. 

We dodged the weather bullet yet again with only a slight sprinkle falling late this afternoon. 

I am reading the third book by Lee Charles Kelley, To Collar a Killer. He has a new one out last month which I need to get. Retired NYPD detective now living in Maine finds himself the number one suspect of a copter pilot found washed up on the beach during a 4th of July party. I enjoyed the first two books in the series but am finding this one to be the best so far. His characters are very likable, especially his girl friend Dr. Jamie Cutter. 

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Tuesday, 13 December 2005

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Many thanks to Bob for taking time out from his busy schedule to put my pictures up for you to enjoy.

The first set is of course me decorating the tree followed by the finished product. My village along the other wall and Malcolm getting into the holiday spirit.

       

In line waiting to go into the Carolina Opry Theater, Frances is standing the closest to the camera with dad and mom right beside her. The others are from our group on the bus. The ladies standing directly in front of Frances are sisters, five of them in all and one sister-in-law. They were a lot of fun.

Next, the front entrance to the Opry. Inside, one of the many beautiful decorations.   Behind, hanging on the wall are pictures of the performers from the show.


    


The tree in the middle of the lobby as you enter the theater. One of several small trees along the stairs with those lovely dolls hanging on them and finally, the cast in the last song of the show.

     


Bob took the dogs for their after dinner walk tonight so that I could make the 6:30 spin class. It was a very busy day at work. I had to go over to our off site storage facility for about two hours to see how things are looking with the 1000 boxes we have coming from a trial somewhere in New York. The boxes are being shipped directly to our facility. Once the department responsible for the litigation gets all the boxes accounted for from the index I will have to go back over and put our bar code labels on them. Then I will have to enter the contents of all 1000 boxes into our data base from the index.



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Wednesday, 14 December 2005

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I forgot to change the date and current link last night. Be sure to stop on Tuesday's page and check out the pictures from my trip and of my Christmas tree.

Very successful day. I took a day of vacation to get the last of my running around done before Christmas. First thing this morning was a 9 am appointment at Tim's to get the oil changed and service on my truck. From there I worked my way across town making stops at Wal-Mart, the bookstore and the mall before heading back across town. I took a lunch break at 11:30 while at the mall and grabbed a sandwich. The bookstore and one mall stop was to pick up two Christmas presents, one for Shane and one for Kim's daughter, both neighborhood kids. At Sears I bought us a floor standing humidifier to replace the one which no longer works on the furnace. My sinuses cannot take the indoor dryness from the heat even though we keep it set on 68.

Back across town I stopped for gas and made  pet, grocery and drug stores runs before finally getting back home at 3:30.

The weather folks seem to think we may get some sort of freezing stuff tonight and tomorrow morning. I plan to use the remainder of my day wrapping Christmas presents and tackling the major mess on my desk.



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Thursday, 15 December 2005

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Winter wonderland. We did get our first ice storm of the season over night. The law firm, like the library system I worked for previously, does not close for bad weather. Bob seems to forget that I have been driving around in this stuff since I was 18. I went to school in the mountains of NC. I never missed a day of work due to weather conditions in all the years I worked at the library both before and after I married Bob. While I know he worries about me I am used to driving in all conditions and am as careful as I can be.

Fortunately I went in because my boss Steve lives west of us which got hammered. Jackie has to stay home with her kids. Someone has to be in the record center at all time to cover file request, so I was it as usual. Steve came in about 12:30. It was a very busy day thus I will not miss the fact I cannot go to the gym this evening.

The drive in this morning was actually fine. The city has started putting a brine solution down on the roads 24 to 25 hours before the start of bad weather. So far, it seems to work pretty well. The roads were slushy all the way in except for a couple of spots. I put the Trooper in 4 wheel and just took my time.

Coming home it was just rain. However, the trees are continuing to ice over. My poor pine tree looks like it has lost some more limbs after we just had it trimmed and cleaned up. Thankfully, we did have the ones over the house taken off. This mess is supposed to blow on through here tonight. Tomorrow morning may be a little tricky but it is supposed to warm up later in the day.

Last night I finished To Collar a Killer. Of the three books in the series, I liked this one the best. I bought the fourth book in the series yesterday for my TBR shelf. Since it is a Christmas story I may read it during the week of Christmas and New Year.

Tomorrow our off site storage center boss is taking us to lunch. Then, we have our Firm Christmas party tomorrow night from 4:30 to 8 at a local country club. They use their big reception room. This is the first year spouses/significant others are invited. Bob does not want to go but Jackie and her husband and Steve and his wife are going. Should be a lot of fun.

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Friday, 16 December 2005

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No update.


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Saturday, 17 December 2005

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I had a wonderful time at the Firm party last night. We had a good crowd, the band played oldies type music, and the food was very good. It has been a long time since I have actually been to a party and I really enjoyed myself. As with a lot of these functions everyone can get up and dance to the fast tunes. I danced with my boss as well as in a group of us girls. Although Jackie's husband was there he does not dance. It was a lot of fun mingling and talking with the paralegals and secretaries I work with on a daily basis.

The power outages are still wide spread and sporadic. Part of the street directly behind still does not have power. The gym was still closed this morning due to lack of power. I did a few things around the house before taking a shower and heading off to visit my folks. I had one errand to run on their side of town. The forecast for tonight and tomorrow is rain/snow mixed so I went over to their house for lunch today since there will be no golf tomorrow.

And, although it has been almost thirty years since I graduate from Appalachian State University in Boone, NC I still am very proud they won the I-AA national title in football last night. The first ever national title won by the school in its history.

And finally, below is the letter to the editor I sent to our local newspaper concerning the support our local government officials do not give to our library system. We continue to suffer from budget cuts and lack of money for buildings, staff, and materials for other departments in the county. Our local school system is a city/county system drawing money from both budgets but they continue to drain our county budget. It is time the citizens of Forsyth County get mad and do something about the neglect of our library services. The letter was printed in this morning Journal.

Saturday, December 17, 2005
Ugly Stepchild

Winston-Salem Journal
I see the Forsyth County Public Library system will again have funds axed in order for our school system to build more schools ("One budget, many demands," Dec. 7). The 1954 main library building has not seen any considerable renovations since a small addition was made back in the early 1980s. All of the busier library branches continue to be housed in small locations without adequate space for books or staff to handle the demands of helping patrons.

The library continues to suffer from decreases in its share of the county budgetary pie to the point that we are now starving what has become our county manager's "ugly stepchild." Budgets for books and other materials continue to be cut or remain the same despite the increased number of users.

As county government continues to build school after school while forsaking all others, it seems to be forgetting just how important our libraries will be for all of these new families who will be moving to our community.

Without an adequate library system, who will support the kids when they leave school each day with their homework assignments and book lists?

BARBARA F. THOMPSON
PRESIDENT, FRIENDS OF THE REYNOLDA MANOR LIBRARY
Winston-Salem




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Sunday, 18 December 2005

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Missed again. The weather liars really missed it this time. Not only did we not get snow/rain but when we got up around 8:15 it was already reaching 40 plus degrees with blue skies and a little breeze. Oh well.

I really don't mind house cleaning but it seems like that is all I have done for the last month. With the deep cleaning going on I guess it is. At any rate, yep, the weekly! house cleaning has been accomplished. I took everything off my desk and the wooden shelves and piled it on the card table I had been using for wrapping. After giving the desk a good cleaning I am now in the process of sorting the rather high pile of rubbish as I place stuff back on my desk. Other than that, no deep cleaning today though I did also mop the bathroom floors.

Yesterday I used the electric blower to give the basement/garage area a good cleaning out. I organized my lawn equipment though I will most likely give the yard another vacuum next weekend.

Guess I better get back to work. I still have ironing to do this afternoon. Later on we are going over to help Paul and Mary with some computer stuff.

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